Dimension in MapContext 1.1.0

[Julien-Samuel Lacroix]

Hi,

In bug 1581 and 1663 we added support for MapContext 1.1.0. One of the 
change was the support for dimensions (like time support). I added new 
metadata to store the dimensions information keeping in mind that there 
can be multiple dimensions element even if MapServer support only the 
time dimension right now. So I added:
wms_dimension_%s_unitsymbol
wms_dimension_%s_units
wms_dimension_%s_uservalue
wms_dimension_%s_default
wms_dimension_%s_multiplevalues
wms_dimension_%s_nearestvalue

Where %s is replaced by the dimension name, ie "time" if it's the time 
dimension.

This change led me to think that we should also change the WMS server 
configuration metadata to wms_dimension_time_default , etc. for 
consistency. This would also help if we support other dimension types in 
the future. However it may be considered like an overkill right now.

I think we can either:
- Only import the dimensions with the "time" name in the MapContext code 
and drop every others and forget about the new metadatas. This woud 
leave everything else without any changes, but we would lose the other 
dimension types support.

- Import everything and add in the code a way to have two metadatas for 
the server configuration (synonyms), for example:
wms_timedefault and wms_dimension_time_default
This would allow us to support multiple dimensions via the metadata.

There's also the WCS code that have some time related metadata and that 
I don't know how it would be affected.

Any idea/comment/preference?

Julien

PS: See bug 1663 for more details:
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=1663

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Julien-Samuel Lacroix            jlacroix at dmsolutions.ca
DM Solutions Group               http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
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